Marg and Leigh's travels around the world

We are two retired women from New Zealand, busy travelling the world. Our quest is to experience other cultures before they are changed beyond recognition, and see endangered animals and environments before they disappear. We hope you like our blog and enjoy our exploits. We sure have had fun getting here.

Saturday, 24 September 2016

Desert & Salt flats to Bolivia (Bolivia)

After our stay in San Pedro de Atacama
(Chile), we headed off on a tour of deserts, lakes and the amazing Salar de
Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats) that would also take us out of Chile, across the
border into Bolivia.

We bought the tour online from New
Zealand, so it was a bit hit and miss. However, we visited our chosen tour
company, Cordillera Travel, when we were in San Pedro and they were very
helpful and efficient.

Bolivian
border

Cordillera picked us up from our hotel at
8 am on the tour day and drove us to the Chilean customs stop where we were
stamped out of Chile.

Driving another hour or so took us to the
border where we disembarked and joined a queue at Bolivian customs. This was an
extremely cold windy spot, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where we paid
our Bolivianos and got a stamp in our passport that let us into Bolivia (no
visas needed).

Bolivian border with driver

Fifteen of us assembled at our 4WD jeeps
and were split into three groups. We were to share our vehicle with three young
German women; all varsity students. Our luggage was put on the roof under a
tarpaulin alongside several big containers of petrol (no petrol stations in the
desert), and we piled aboard to start our adventure.

Our driver was Izak, a Bolivian who spoke
no English, but luckily for us, our three companions spoke Spanish and were
able to translate for us. Finally, we
drove off, in convoy, toward the Dali Desert.

Laguna Verde

Our first stop was Laguna Blanca (White
Lake) on the Bolivian high plain (altiplano). The Laguna gets its name from the
white look created by the high amount of minerals suspended in the water.A little further on, we stopped at Laguna
Verde (Green Lake), at the base of the Licancabur Volcano – it is quite a
stunner. This lake is also full of minerals, but of a different type, turning
the water various shades of green.

Sol de Mañana geysers
4,900m

The Dali Desert was an amazing landscape
of stony sand, surrounded by bare hills, giant volcanic rocks and volcanoes,
all showing a stunning array of colour. We stopped next at the Sol de Mañana geysers
which sit at 4,900 metres above sea level – quite high! Close by the geysers, was a thermal pool with
very hot water. We chose not to have a dip in the pool - while it was lovely
and warm in the water, the air out of it was absolutely freezing!

Laguna Colorado

At this stage, with the desert wind and
the high altitude, our eyes were streaming, noses running and lungs heaving
every time we got out of the 4WD to walk anywhere.

It was a tough terrain and tough going,
but oh so beautiful – like nothing else we have ever seen.

Finally, after a day of fantastic sights,
we came across a sight that became a highlight for us – Laguna Colorado.

Laguna Colorado

Sitting at 4,370 metres above sea level,
this lagoon is the main nesting place for more than 30,000 flamingos of 3
different species. As with the flamingos we saw in Chile, they get their pink
colour from eating the red algae and plankton in the water.

They were a stunning, sight wading
through the red coloured water as they fed. Their colours were quite beautiful
in different shades of pink.

Laguna Colorado

As well as flamingos we saw lots of
vicuña and llamas grazing in the sparse vegetation.

The scenery was spectacular; reds and blacks of the mountains, brown earth scattered with
little bunches of yellow grasses, and some grey-green shrubs. Most of
the mountains were volcanoes and the soil was sand and scoria. We passed one
active volcano with a steady stream of smoke coming out of it.

Our hostel

It was bitterly cold and windy, but we
were snug inside our transport. However, every time we stopped to view a sight
we emerged like little Michelin men wrapped in puffer jackets, scarfs, hats and
gloves.

At the end of our first day, we staggered
into a hostel in the middle of nowhere, sharing a room with the others from our
4WD. We were able to hire sleeping bags, thank goodness as it was bitterly cold
inside at -10 with no heating, as well as out, at -26 degrees.

We had dinner in a very cold dining room
and then, because it was too cold to stay up, we were all in bed by 8 pm.

Arbol de Piedra rocks

We each had a sleeping bag, 3 blankets and
most of our clothes on, and it was frigid. No showers in the morning either,
but that was ok as it was too cold to take any clothes off. However, we had
lots of fun, and looked forward to the sights of day two.

Off we set next morning, into the
beautiful Siloli Desert. We soon came
across ‘Arbol de Piedra’, a series of amazing rock formations which had been
formed over millennia by the -35 degree windy conditions.

Viscacha

While there, we saw a very cute animal
called a viscacha. These are rodents that look like a cross between a rabbit,
wallaby, and squirrel.

Not much further on, we came across a
group of coloured lagoons: Laguna Honda, Chiarcota, Cañapa and Hedionda.

This last is a salt lake sitting at 4,121
meters where we saw another wonderful collection of graceful pink and white
flamingos. We also saw more vicuña.

Hediona Laguna

Leaving the lagunas, we drove across the
Chiguana salt flat, to San Juan town. Here we had our second nights’
accommodation in a salt hostel. The salt hostel is made of…..well…..salt. Its
whole structure, outside and in, is comprised of blocks of salt – the walls,
bedframe, furniture etc are all blocks of, or carved out of salt.

Another early night here, as everyone was
too cold to sit and talk much. Unfortunately, there we no sleeping bags.

We can categorically tell you that salt
does not retain heat when you sit or sleep on it!

Sunrise on the Salar

The next morning we were up at 4 am,
heading off to see the sun rise over the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni salt flats). It
was really worth the early start to see the rising sun reflecting on the white salt.

The Salar seemed to go on forever, just
white and more white – broken only by the hexagonal shapes that are formed by
the salt in the salt crust. The Sala de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat,
covering more than 10,000 sq. km. It sits at 3,656 meters above sea level and can
be seen from outer space.

Fun photo on the Salar

It was formed through changes in several
prehistoric lakes which have resulted in a salt crust that is very thick (up to
several metres in places). Beneath the crust, are huge quantities of lithium –
in fact the Salar provides almost 70% of the world’s lithium.

The Salar is so flat, it is used for calibrating the
distance measurement equipment of satellites. This also make it great for a fun
photo. It really is a truly amazing place.

Incahuasi Island

Our next stop was Incahuasi Island,
located in the middle of the Salar. This is believed to be an old volcano that
was not quite covered by the salt but which is now covered in hundreds of 1000
year old cacti, many of them up to 9 or 10 metres tall.

After walking around the island, we had a
great breakfast prepared by Izak before going to a salt museum, and Colchani, a
small salt mining town selling all sorts of traditional and handmade items made
from cactus wood, Llama wool etc.

Leigh on derelict steam
train

Our last stop was in the town of Uyuni,
with a stop at the train graveyard, full of derelict steam trains that had been
used for carrying salt and workers. The ground around was littered with masses
of rubbish which made the area look quite forlorn.

This stop completed our tour. We were
dropped off at the tour office and said our farewells to Izak, our fantastic
driver and our three travelling companions.

We then headed around the corner to find
our hotel - but couldn’t find it for some reason!

Uyuni town at night

A family in a car stopped to help and said
we had walked right past it (we were too tired to notice).

These lovely people loaded our bags in
their car and drove us back there. Such kind and friendly people, and a lovely
introduction to Bolivia.

We then went to the bus station to book a
seat to get to Potosi, the next stop on our trip.

Everywhere women were shouting
"Potosiiiiii, Potosiiiiiii" as well as other destinations, at the
tops of their voices, to get you to buy a ticket. An amazing combination of
vaguely melodic sounds!

We found the Trans Diana bus company looked
ok and booked our seats for the next morning, happy to know we had our
transport sorted.

While we found the freezing cold, and at
times the altitude quite hard to cope with, we made it; and with some amazing
memories to take home with us. The sights throughout the tour were stunning,
and more than made up for the more difficult patches. There is nowhere in our
travels to date, that compares with the scenery and natural beauty that we have
seen on this trip.

Let’s see what else Bolivia can deliver -
next stop, the very high altitude city of Potosi.